Hades and Persephone
by Missah J
Summary: Draco Malfoy is an enigma that Astoria struggled to understand.


For Kore-of-Myth's Planetary Prose challenge, my planet of choice was Pluto.

Disclaimer: My name is Riley, not J.K. Rowling. So Harry Potter is not my creation.

--

Hades and Persephone

By: Slytherclaw Coffee Ninja

Dark

The common room was dark the first time either of them really laid eyes on each other. The only light was coming from the flickering embers in the fireplace, and Astoria could barely in front of herself as she descended the steps from the girls' dormitory. She had heard shouting, and, even years later, the words exchanged between the couple feuding in front of the dying fireplace haunted her.

"How could you say that of all things?!"

"Don't pretend to understand!"

"But I do understand! I lo—"

"You don't! "

"But Draco!"

She tiptoed down the steps, trying not to make any noise. Once she reached the floor, she could make out a shadow, standing by the fireplace.

"Are you alright?" she nearly whispered.

"Yes," he said without hesitation.

She wasn't convinced. When she was younger, she would oftentimes ask her parents questions that they didn't want to answer. For example, when she was nine, she had questioned her parents' position in the First War, and both her father and mother had told her, without hesitating, that they were neutral, in a way that almost seemed as though the two of them had spent hours rehearsing for the moment that they would be questioned.

"You're not alright," Astoria replied. "Pansy's done something to upset you."

She could almost hear his glare in the darkness. "Go back to bed," he said curtly.

Turning, she decided that Draco Malfoy was an enigma that could never be solved. If he wasn't ready to tell someone what was bothering him, then he would always remain a mystery, shrouded in indefinite, unsolvable darkness.

Overlooked

No one ever noticed her.

Astoria liked to keep to herself, and when the common room would be a buzz with students, she would keep to a corner with a book or two, trying to keep away from the crowds.

No one seemed to care if she had lost something, or if she was upset, or even notice that she was in the room. In a way, she enjoyed the solace, but there was a part of her that yearned for someone, anyone, to not overlook her.

She was pretending to be reading her copy of Numerology and Grammatica, but, in actuality, she was scanning the room for any sign of Draco. After their run-in the previous week, she hadn't seen him. He was always missing at mealtimes, and was never in the common room anymore. Of course, they were in different years, so those were the only places she really did see him, aside from in the corridors on the way to her classes.

There was something that worried her about the way that he had spoken to her during their last encounter. There was something troubling him, and she had a feeling about what that something was.

The door to the common room swung open, and Draco stepped through. His eyes were downcast, and there seemed to be something eating at him. She edged a little closer, and tried to see, perhaps, if he would notice her.

She stares for a few moments, maybe more. He turns for a moment, and looks over at her, then turns away.

She picks her book up once again.

"I just wanted to help," she murmurs to herself, as she has, once again, been overlooked.

Death

"He's dead. Snape killed him," a Ravenclaw whispers to her friend.

"I knew the Slytherins were evil," whispers a Hufflepuff.

All around her, students are whispering, and stealing glances at the Slytherins, as if they're watching them to see if another one will spring up, brandish their wand, and kill one of the professors.

"Do you think McGonnagal's next?" a Gryffindor asks a Ravenclaw.

Astoria shifts in her seat. The students from other houses were whispering; having exchanges about what they had heard happened the night that Dumbledore was murdered.

She prefers not to think about it, because the truth of the matter isn't something that she's willing to face.

That Draco was going to kill.

That he was going to murder Dumbledore.

As the casket is lowered into the tomb, and the service is concluded, Astoria nearly falls over when a boy runs past her – Harry Potter. She turns to see where he has gone – he's standing beside a girl with ginger hair, another Gryffindor, Ginny Weasley. While she had never really met the girl, she had heard about her in the Slytherin common room during the evenings when the sixth years would occupy the room, and talk about anything their heart desired, with no regard for the other persons in the room. Oftentimes, they'd be speaking about people standing in the room, as if they weren't there.

But they never spoke about her.

"I might as well not even exist," she muttered to herself as she wandered back towards the castle with the rest of the students. Her existence seemed so meaningless at times, and left her to ponder whether or not life had a meaning; if she had a mission that she was supposed to fulfill, or if she was created for no reason at all, except to fill the spot of 'Astoria Greengrass'.

Is that all I am? - A spot in the universe that needed a being to fill it?

She glances over to the forest, at that particular moment, and for a second, she's convinced that she sees Draco standing there, staring back at her, but when she stops and takes another look, he's gone.

"Can you believe he's dead?"

"I heard Malfoy was going to kill him. You know that really scary Slytherin prefect?"

"…aren't all of them scary?"

Whether her classmates thought it or not, as Astoria was staring out into the forest, she knew that Draco was not responsible for Dumbledore's death.

Wealth

There were many things that Astoria had never stopped to consider when she was little – such as who she would get married to, if she would have kids, or the date of her death. However, once she had entered her fifth year at Hogwarts, she realizes that those are things that you never stop to think about until they're about to happen.

That year, she saw him again. Amidst the war-torn school, the Gryffindors vying for everyone in the school to stand up and fight off Voldemort, the rest of the houses trying to dispose of the Slytherins in whatever way they could think of. To everyone else, all they were, and all they would ever be were Death Eaters, Voldemort supporters, pureblood fanatics, and muggleborn haters.

But there he was, sitting on a couch alone in the common room, staring blankly at the fire.

She didn't want to disturb him; it almost seemed as though it was a sin if she did. He had seemed so on-edge and nervous, and to see him at peace was a wonderful feeling.

"He was going to kill my family," he says in a hoarse whisper. "He is going to kill them. And me."

She edges closer, and sat down on the couch beside him. She had never seen him this up close, and, at first, wasn't sure of what she was supposed to do, or say to him.

"It'll be alright," she finds herself saying.

He doesn't respond, instead, he continues to stare at the fire with a glazed look on his face. Instead of going back to her dorm, she sat there in silence with him, believing that even with her wealth of knowledge about people and their behaviors', Draco Malfoy had to be one of the most complex.

Pomegranate

"It has to be an arranged marriage," a small, rotund witch says to her husband. "I don't see how any woman would want to marry Draco Malfoy."

Even though she's graduated from Hogwarts, she still felt as though she's a student, because of the gossip that she hears at every turn. As she enters Madame Malkin's to get her robes mended, she hears Madame Malkin whisper to her assistant: "Do you know who that is? It's Astoria Greengrass. She's getting married to the Malfoys' son."

She coughed to announce her presence, which made the other witches realize that she had been standing there all along, and they both rushed over to her, and began inquiring as to if she needed help, and what she was looking for.

"I just wanted to get these mended," she said calmly, handing the robes to the assistant.

"But aren't you getting married to Draco Malfoy? Can't he just give you money to pay for new ones?" which made Madame Malkin glare at her assistant.

"Yes. But I rather like these, so would you please—"

"But you could likely get ones just like these, brand new. We have them in stock, in fact—"

"I didn't ask for new ones," Astoria replied. "I just want these mended."

"It's an arranged marriage, isn't it?" the assistant inquired, still standing next to Astoria with the bundle of robes, having not even moved an inch from her spot.

She glared at the assistant, took the robes from her, and said, "I'll just do it myself then."

She left the shop, swearing under her breath, because she realized, a little too late, that she had never learned how to sew.

--

She had always loved the taste of pomegranates. Even when she was a little girl, she would always want to have one. Yet, while she was sitting in the kitchen of the Malfoy manor on a stool, holding a pomegranate in her hand, she was reminded of a story that Daphne had told her when the two of them were younger.

"You see, Tori, Hades wanted a bride, so he kidnapped Persephone and took her down to Hell with him. People say that she didn't want to be there with him, but he forced her to eat a few pomegranate seeds, so while Zeus was able to allow Persephone to return to her mother Demeter, she would still have to spend part of the year with Hades."

But there was a version of the story that Daphne had never shared with her – that Persephone had fallen in love with Hades, and had eaten the seeds so that she could be with him for part of each and every year.

That was the version that she believed.

Draco was Hades, misunderstood, and people were always making judgments about him, or about things that he did before they met him. Even when he had donated money to St.Mungo's people had said that he was trying to make amends for the war, and "might as well not even try, being a Malfoy."

She was Persephone. While people assumed their marriage was arranged, it wasn't. People assumed she wasn't in love with him, but she was. He needed her, and she needed him. Everyone else didn't matter; everyone else wouldn't matter.

"You always did love those."

She glanced over her shoulder to see him standing at the threshold of the kitchen, looking weary, but happier than he had when the two of them had been at Hogwarts. She smiled, and put the pomegranate down on the table, and wandered over to him.

She felt the same way she did years ago when she had first seen him up close, and yet, while he had aged, was beginning to lose his hair, and seemed to always be tired, he was still the same person she had seen that night in the common room.

"Only now, I've figured you out," she said softly, as the two of them embraced.


End file.
